Holiday light strings are a well-known adornment for people's homes, gardens, patios, and yards. Hanging Christmas lights has long been a tradition celebrated by many. In addition to lights, a great assortment of which are strung on wires, wires have been strung with other ornaments, such as glass balls, toys, and faux-plants.
The act of hanging holiday light strings is somewhat of an arduous task, especially strings of icicle lights. Icicle light strings have additional parallel light strands that drape from a common wire. The transversely descending lengths of light strands are prone to tangling to one another, as well as to the shared wire. Considering the ease with which tangling occurs, just the thought of hanging strings of icicle lights is stressful. But the thought of attempting to hang them while being precariously perched from a ladder seems downright unsafe.
The act of storing light strings is equally as difficult. Improper storage can cause bulb breakage, damage to the sockets, and ornament destruction. Known light string reels describe using horizontally disposed reels for coiling. However, such a configuration cannot accommodate icicle light strings because of their descending parallel light strands.
Thus, there is a need for a string of lights reel that provides a tangle-free storage configuration and facilitates hanging the different types and sizes of commercially available wire-wound decorations, including icicle lights strings.
A number of devices have provided a reel configuration for storage of light strings, but lack the ability, among other things, to store different types of holiday decoration strings at the same time on the reel, and lack the ability to store such bulky holiday decorations such as icicle light strings. Moreover, presently known descriptions fail to provide a reel that stores more than one type of light string and wire-wound decoration, and fail to describe a reel that facilitates the hanging of light strings while perched from a ladder. The following represents a list of known art:
Reference:Issued to:Date of Issue:6,497,381RoseDec. 24, 20026,009,688Pedersen, et al.Jan. 4, 20005,957,401O'DonnellSep. 28, 19995,941,388SpielbergerAug. 24, 19995,661,953JolleySep. 2, 19975,598,985WinesettFeb. 4, 19976,431,489RoseAug. 13, 2002
The teachings of each of the above-listed citations (which does not itself incorporate essential material by reference) are herein incorporated by reference. None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.